Hardwood has been used as a floor covering for several hundred years, and both hardwood floor and wood composite laminate flooring have utilized a conventional tongue-and-groove coupling. In the traditional “tongue-and-groove” structure, a tongue and corresponding groove can be easily coupled by laterally shifting the tongue towards a groove in the same plane. While this provides for easy installation, it also renders the tongue-and-groove joint susceptible to separation by physical or temperature-dependent disturbance of the flooring. Separation is undesirable because it can cause a flooring installation to become disassembled and because it is aesthetically displeasing.
Tongue-and-groove configurations have sought to overcome this undesirable susceptibility to separation by using a tongue-and-groove design which still allows lateral coupling of the tongue and groove, while also providing a locking in the lateral direction. While such a design can overcome much of the susceptibility to separating, these flooring panels can be difficult to install.